KOTA KINABALU: A meeting of the Special Council on the Malaysia Agreement today\u00a0(MKMA63) endorsed restoring 35 per cent of the 222 parliamentary seats for East Malaysia.
\nMinister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah and Sarawak Affairs) Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili said\u00a0the issue was deliberated and endorsed at the 5th meeting of the Special Council\u00a0chaired by Prime Minister\u00a0 Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob in Putrajaya.\u00a0
\n\u201cHowever,\u00a0more engagements are required pertaining to the issue, especially among serving Borneo legislators and legal practitioners,\u201d he said in a statement here last night.
\nBased on the current calculation, of the 222 parliamentary seats, 166 or 75 per cent are in the Peninsular Malaysia while the remaining 25 per cent or 56 seats are for the Borneo states, with Sarawak (31) and Sabah (25).
\nWith this endorsement by the council, Sabah and Sarawak will be able to push for\u00a078 of the 222 parliamentary seats.
\nOngkili, who is also Kota Marudu member of parliament, said lawmakers\u00a0from Sabah and Sarawak have demanded a review of the number of parliamentary seats for both states.
\nHe said: \u201cIn 1963, Sabah had\u00a016 seats, Sarawak (24) and Singapore (15), representing 35 per cent from the overall 159 parliamentary seats, while the remaining 65 per cent or 104 seats were Malaya\u2019s.
\n\u201cMalaya does not possess the two-third (2\/3)\u00a0majority alone. So when Singapore left Malaysia in 1965, the seats belonging to Singapore should be given to Sabah and Sarawak, to meet the 35 per cent representation,” he said, adding that the proposed restoration of seats had been endorsed by the Parliamentary Special Select Committee in 2012.
\nOngkili also added that the ultimate task is to convince the Election Commission but stressed that the issue should be pushed because it is another restoration in accordance with the MA63.
\nOn another matter, the statement also mentioned that Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had briefed the MKMA63 that\u00a0efforts are ongoing to beef up health services in Sabah and Sarawak.
\nThe council, which included\u00a0Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor and Sarawak Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Openg, senior federal and state ministers and officials, was informed\u00a0that both Sabah and Sarawak can expect additional doctors and nurses soon, as well as other medical facilities.
\n“Also in\u00a0the pipeline are\u00a0plans to repair dilapidated hospitals and clinics in both states, and to ensure there are sufficient numbers of specialists at all healthcare outlets,” the statement read.
\n— BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KOTA KINABALU: A meeting of the Special Council on the Malaysia Agreement today\u00a0(MKMA63) endorsed restoring 35 per cent of the 222 parliamentary seats for East Malaysia. Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah and Sarawak Affairs) Datuk Seri Dr Maximus Ongkili said\u00a0the issue was deliberated and endorsed at the 5th meeting of the Special Council\u00a0chaired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":15158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15157","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15159,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15157\/revisions\/15159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}